


Gilbert’s getting married

by coeurgryffondor



Series: but not what we may be [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, M/M, Multi, Transgender, Transgender Poland (Hetalia), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24672445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coeurgryffondor/pseuds/coeurgryffondor
Summary: “Can I… ask a question?” Ludwig sits at the table across from him. “How did you two, you know… start?”Gilbert shakes his head. “Oh man.”
Relationships: Germany & Prussia (Hetalia), Past Lithuania/Poland (Hetalia), Poland/Prussia (Hetalia), past Prussia/OFC (Hetalia)
Series: but not what we may be [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1349884
Kudos: 17





	Gilbert’s getting married

## I

He’s laying in bed, rubbing at the ache in his chest. It’s not as bad as it had been, when the Berlin Wall was first built, now that it’s a few years old. But still… he hates it.

There’s a knock at his door, and Gilbert has barely sat up before the person lets themself in, closing the door quietly behind them. They approach slowly, and in the dim light he realizes it’s Feliks.

Which is confusing, since he and Feliks didn’t talk. Not anymore, not after… everything.

“Hey,” Gilbert whispers, suddenly aware that he was naked in bed, covered by heavy enough sheets sure, but his chest was still exposed. Old habits died hard, and though Erzsébet loved to tease him for it, he didn’t like being physically exposed to others. It made his skin crawl: something from his upbringing that he couldn’t shake. He didn’t even like people knowing he’d ever touched or kissed another person, his privacy was so paramount that most didn’t even realize he might be hiding parts of himself.

But here he was, literally exposed before someone who hated him.

Feliks steps closer, into the light, right beside Gilbert’s chest. “I have two conditions.”

“What?” Gilbert asks stupidly. Maybe he was more tired than he thought? Maybe this was a hallucination. That would make sense.

“The first,” Feliks whispers, leaning in close and clutching at his robe about him, “is that tonight, you will treat me as I want to be treated: like a woman.”

Yup: definitely a hallucination.

“The second is that after tonight, we will never speak of any of this again.”

Gilbert’s eyes dart all over his visitor’s face, finding him — her? — to be absolutely serious.

“Sure?” Gilbert replies best he can before realizing Feliks had been speaking Polish, and Gilbert had now let on to another of his carefully guarded secrets, that he was perfectly fluent in the language.

Feliks smiles, and removes the robe, and reveals a little feminine negligée beneath it. The Pole then mounts Gilbert on the bed — over the blankets! — and runs those hands with long fingers up and down the German’s chest.

Then there’s that smile.

“Am I a pretty girl?” and his — her? — voice is higher than normal, not loads, just enough off though that Gilbert can tell from centuries of hearing it.

Was she a pretty girl? Gilbert takes in the sight before him, the Polish nation for some reason having sought out his room in this forsaken Warsaw Pact house, to come to him in some sort of sexual yet secret manner.

It was all quite a lot to process, so he’ll process it tomorrow and go with it for tonight.

“No,” Gilbert replies, and Feliks’s face falls before the man adds, “you’re a beautiful woman.”

She blushes. “You’re just saying that.”

“Maybe,” he admits, “but I do have a thing for Polish women.”

“Oh,” and Feliks leans down so close, Gilbert’s skin is hot from her breath, “I can tell.”

* * *

## II

He’s been popping into Polish cities every once and a while, for the food and a meander and to get out of East Berlin. This decade was bringing change to both sides of the Iron Curtain and Gilbert enjoyed the freedom that afforded him, to move around like a man, but still: more than twenty years on and there was a wall where there should be his brother.

Once he’d had a beautiful mistress from Poland. He’d met her during the Third Partition, fell in love, moved in not just her but also her mother and sister, and buried her in the garden of his house. He’d loved her like he’d never loved anyone else, except maybe Erzsébet but that was different. He’d loved his mistress who had been mother to his brother, the wife he’d never thought he’d deserve, like he’s never loved another and might never love again.

If Gilbert sat in a square bustling with people, and pretended, he could imagine he was waiting for her. Perhaps her sister had held her up, or she’d been taking care of her mother. It kept him coming back to Poland, at least, to break up the monotony and find something new. The heart needed something to yearn for, he’d learned, no matter what Roderich Iamstillanarchdukeinmyworld Edelstein would probably say.

Sitting in a square had been what Gilbert had had planned, which was why standing in a back alley with Feliks Łukasiewicz who was smoking a cigarette and acting like he and Gilbert hadn’t spoken since the 18th century was a weird turn of events.

“I’m fucking Toris,” Feliks explains.

“Great,” Gilbert says sarcastically. “I’m happy for you.”

“He’s going to go back to Nataliya,” and Feliks flicks his cigarette to the ground, jamming his foot into it violently. “He always goes back to that Belarusian, so I need to take him while I can.”

There were so many pierogi Gilbert could be eating right now, with a nice beer and a pretty lady across the restaurant making eyes at him. He’d never approach her, but it was nice to feel wanted. It was human.

“He’s the only one, after all,” Feliks says offhandedly, turning away from Gilbert, “who’s ever treated me like I wanted to be treated.”

“I treated you as you wanted,” Gilbert counters, finding fierce eyes challenging him. “You made me swear I’d never speak of it again, but I did what you asked. If you’d wanted more, you should have said.”

Feliks stares at him, contempt plain in his face, before it breaks into realization. “Oh my Lord, you’re serious.”

“Of course I am,” and Gilbert is offended. He’d been a good lover that night. His finest work ever? No, but far better than most men could do. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I… thought… only Toris…,” but Feliks shakes his head. “Forget it. Forget it! Forget all of it, that night was a mistake, it’s not like you mean it anyway. Goodbye, Beilschmidt.”

When he gets back to East Berlin a few days later, he’s still seething over the offense. The Pole had said to treat him like a woman, and Gilbert had. Why did Feliks act like that was so beyond what Gilbert could manage?

* * *

## III

He stands, morose, down on the street corner. Up in the apartment was his brother, and his brother’s family, and his family, but not her.

No, his second great Polish love was dead. She’s not buried in the garden of the family estate though, as would dignify her. No, she’s buried in some unmarked grave in an attempt to erase her from history by the people who stole her from him, and Gilbert can’t move her: he doesn’t know a lot about Judaism but he knows that much. So he leaves her where she’s buried, and instead wishes the world had not separated them so soon.

She’d been a delicate thing, like his mistress before her, but strong too, in her own way: If only he’d been able to be stronger, for the both of them.

“Hey.” Turning to whoever had spoken to him, Gilbert find it’s Feliks. Which is weird, he hasn’t seen him outside diplomatic requirements in about a decade.

But here he was.

Also standing on a Berlin street corner.

The shorter man blushes, pushing hair behind his ear. It’s almost feminine in the movement. “I didn’t think I’d find you… outside.”

Gilbert stares, and shrugs, and says too honestly because he hates having to hide himself all the time, “The woman I thought I’d marry is dead and I want nothing more than to lay down beside her and die as well.”

Feliks struggles to meet his eyes but just barely does, nodding a little. “She… was Polish, right?”

“Yeah,” Gilbert agrees, looking away. “Yeah, Polish. I’ve a thing for Polish women.”

“So I’ve heard,” Feliks murmurs, not quite an echo from four decades earlier. A silence falls over the two of them standing down on the street corner, before Feliks says, “I came… to check on you.”

“Eh?” Why would Feliks — Feliks Łukasiewicz, who had his own family and life and history to contend with — be here to check on Gilbert?

“I know you’ve a pretty close knit family,” the Pole continues in a hushed tone, “but I still thought… I don’t know. I wanted to make sure you were doing as ok as you can, for myself.”

The German considers that for a long while before concluding, “Stand with me, Feliks. Join me in my weird ways.”

The Pole smiles a little. “I think I have some time to loiter aimlessly.”

* * *

## IV

The children are grown, so Gilbert’s latest hobby is obsessively memorizing weird bits of history. Ludwig has confiscated his megaphone as punishment for his older brother’s academic pursuits, the bastard.

Yet it’s Feliks who corners him after a meeting.

“It was a true fact!” Gilbert immediately shouts, putting his hands up high, and over the Pole’s shoulder he can see his brother shaking his head in disappointment and walking away. “I’m not taking it back!”

“Quiet!” Feliks hisses. “This isn’t about that. Also it was more embarrassing to Toris than me.”

“Oh.” Gilbert calms down, collects himself, then laughs. “Haha, got the pagan bastard.”

“Gilbert, focus please.”

“Hmm?” They’re alone now, in this part of the hallway, no one around to see or hear them. “Uh, what’s up?”

Feliks holds his briefcase with both hands before his body, the way Erzsébet often did. “I was wondering, since all of my other hints this past week clearly went over your head, if you and I could get drinks and catch up.”

“Catch… up?” They’d stayed in contact, since the Corner Loitering Day. Gilbert had been there for Feliks when his wife had died. Feliks had corrected Gilbert’s Polish where it had become rusty. It had been uncomfortable at first but eventually they had eased into their own new normal, over time, so long as they didn’t tell anyone about it.

For some reason, it being their secret was part of it working.

Feliks blushes. “If that’s of interest to you, of course — you can say– I mean, that is….”

Gilbert joins him in a blush. Someone was flirting with him! “Yeah… yeah, it could be. Of interest, that is. Yeah.” He smiles to himself. “Yeah.”

* * *

## V

His family desperately wants to know who he’s dating. For some reason, denying them the answer is way more satisfying than it should be, for it causes them to develop conspiracy theories and talk about him constantly. Gilbert enjoys the stupidity of it all, especially when he hears how much money is in the betting pool now.

They’re careful not to let anyone know — not that they’re ashamed. It’s just that, neither thinks others will understand. There’ll be judgements. There’s so much baggage. It was… easier, keeping it just them.

Gilbert and Feliks.

Dating.

For a couple of years now.

And Ludwig said Gilbert couldn’t handle long term commitment!

He’s in Kraków, waiting for Feliks to finish getting ready in the bathroom of the apartment, when a thought occurs to Gilbert. The thought is all consuming, causing Gilbert to stare at his hands, then make up his mind, then stand and march into the bathroom to stand behind Feliks menacingly, making eyes contact in the mirror.

“Uh,” Feliks starts in confusion, “may I help you, Sir?”

“That night–” they always referred to it like that, never have to elaborate “–you asked me to do two things.”

“I’ll remind you,” Feliks says, moving back to styling his hair, “that the second one was to never speak about that night again.”

“Then you said,” Gilbert carries on, because he had a point to make God dam-— no, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Beilschmidt — dang it all, “how only Toris treated you the way you wanted to be treated.”

“Mmm, so?”

“Do you still… want… to be treated that way?” Feliks’s eyes snap up at the question. “I want to treat you right,” Gilbert assures. “Whatever that is. I don’t know. I’m not good at these things, I’m old, but maybe you could teach this old dog something new.”

The Pole relaxes, laughing and turning towards him and wrapping his arms around Gilbert’s middle. “We’re both old, silly. And I don’t know. I need… to think about things.” Feliks presses his forehead against Gilbert’s shoulder. “I’ve carried such shame and confusion, for so long. It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert replies, thinking to his Polish mistress, then his Polish lover, and how he’d wished he’d been strong enough for them, and all the secrets he’s kept over all the centuries. “Yeah. Just a thought, anyway.”

* * *

## VI

His brother used to mark special anniversaries with big, romantic dinners, so Gilbert books a nice, private table in a posh place for their five year anniversary.

“I swear on all that’s holy, Gilbert Beilschmidt,” Feliks hisses as the waiter leaves, “if you propose tonight, I’m saying no, as my nails are a mess and you don’t know my ring size.”

“Dumbass,” Gilbert grunts, flipping through the menu, “as if I’m proposing.” His brother would have been proposing, the goodie two-shoes bastard.

“Good, because I’m the one bringing big news tonight.”

The German looks up in surprise. “Are you pregnant?”

Feliks raises an eyebrow and purses his lips.

“You’re cute when you’re annoyed with me.”

“Great, just what I need, for you to find The Look attractive. You know, Toris found it intimidating.”

“Well you’re always attractive to me,” Gilbert says honestly, a slight heat to his cheeks. But he’s learned, over five years, to say things like that. To open up again, to this person he was letting in. He’s learned two times before that it’s ok, even if it ends it hurt, because it still happened and maybe, really, that’s what matters.

Feliks falls silent at that, for entirely too long, and Gilbert doesn’t press until the food arrives and the Pole is still fidgeting in his seat.

“If you are pregnant,” Gilbert tries to joke, “you should have said before I ordered that bottle of wine.”

“I’m trying to gather up the courage,” Feliks replies in a strained voice, twisting the fabric napkin between his hands, “to say something. Something I need to say that’s really, really hard to say and mean and that I haven’t had to do in centuries.”

Gilbert wants to reply, “Still sounds like you’re pregnant,” but has the good sense not to.

Feliks takes a deep breath in, then a deep breath out, before meeting Gilbert’s eyes and saying, “I’m transgender.”

The German blinks.

His lover pales. “Gilbert, please say something.”

“That’s the one,” and his hands come up to gesture, the way his sister-in-law and niece would, an Italian habit, “where the sex and the gender do a cross over thing, right? Like you’re male, but also a woman, yeah?”

His lover swallows and nods. “Yeah, that.”

Gilbert smiles to himself in pride for knowing that. “Aight, yeah, I mean, I already knew that didn’t I? Or that you dabbled in that? Experimented? My niece always says people need space to explore–“

“Gilbert.”

The German stops talking.

“Gilbert, is that your reaction?”

The German is confused. “Yes? I mean, would you rather I, I don’t know, be angry or sad or break up with you or something? Should I be shocked? I could feign shock.”

“No.” Feliks is also confused. “No, but you’re just… accepting this?”

Gilbert shrugs. “Yeah why not, you tell me you’re a transwoman, swell thing, great, I’ll probably fuck up the pronouns for a while but I’ll get there eventually, tell me what you want and I’ll be game.”

His lover shakes, and stares, and Gilbert starts to think he said the wrong thing, especially as Feliks breaks down in tears.

“Oh Feliks! I have fucked up, haven’t I?” He should have feigned shock, his brother would have known to do that and delivered it well.

“No!” Feliks cries. “No, you didn’t! You… you’re wonderful, that’s why I’m crying.”

“Of course I’m wonderful.” Gilbert wonders if maybe this whole night was another case of him missing the mark. Maybe his niece would be able to help him figure this out. “˙Hey, since Feliks is a dude’s name, should I call you something else now?”

Feliks throws a napkin at him as the wine finally arrives.

* * *

## VII

They keep a small apartment in an accepting neighborhood, where no one looks twice when they walk past. Gilbert lets his girlfriend decorate, and buy most of his clothes, and tell him what they’ll be doing with their weekends. He finds he rather enjoys having someone else run his life, like his first Polish mistress had done for him.

“Did you hear me?” a voice calls from the other room before it’s followed by a woman in the doorway. “Gilbert, are you listening?”

“You’re great,” Gilbert responds, “you know that right? Like, you are spectacular.”

Felicja grins. “Damn right I am, and you’re an idiot who doesn’t listen when spoken to. I’d said, Toris is going to come by for dinner, and then I want to talk about the doctor’s appointment.”

“Aight,” Gilbert agrees. Toris, though still a pagan in Gilbert’s eyes who couldn’t be trusted, he’s come to accept as part of Felicja’s life and so part of his. He even, begrudgingly, though he’d never admit to it, was grateful to Toris in a way: Felicja had felt safe with him, and accepted. Toris has allowed his spouse to explore her gender, centuries before that became something acceptable, and treated her as she’d wanted to be without hesitation.

In a way, Gilbert felt sometimes like he was trying to live up to the high bar Toris had set.

Even if he was a pagan.

Felicja is still standing there, hand on hip. Gilbert suspects that means he’s in trouble.

“I like that blouse on you,” he says in an attempt to distract away from whatever he’d done. “It’s nice. You’ve a great chest plate, what’s it called? Sternum?”

“The doctor’s appointment,” Felicja says, as if she hadn’t been interrupted, “about starting my transition.”

Ah! That one. “Sweet, great, love it.”

“Are you going to come?”

The German shrugs. “If you want me to, I will. If you don’t want me to, I won’t.”

“You’re ok, with all of this, right?” She steps to where he’s sitting, between his legs, so he can wrap his arms around her middle as she plays with his hair. Gilbert likes when she does that.

“Of course, whatever you want or need to be happy, I want you to have. I just want what’s best for you,” Gilbert says. “I didn’t think it was more complicated than that.”

Felicja smiles, backing away. “Good. Then you can tell Toris we’re dating tonight,” and with that she runs out of the room.

“Now hold on!”

* * *

## VIII

The day long meeting was over, with much excitement: Feliks had shown up as Felicja, and stuck to her guns, and then held Gilbert’s hands as she left. She was back in their room, freshening up, while Gilbert waited in his brother’s room — that he was supposedly sharing, since Gilbert hadn’t told Ludwig he planned on sharing with someone else.

With his girlfriend, precisely.

The one people call “Poland.”

Quietly, his brother enters the room.

“Hey,” Gilbert starts with, because that felt safe.

Ludwig drops his briefcase on the desk, pulling his tie open. He looks good, in his Italian suit, just like his wife had liked to dress him in: if Gilbert had a weakness for Polish women, Ludwig did for Italian women. “Hey.” His baby brother hovers there, not looking at him.

“You’re mad.”

“I… don’t know what I am.” They lapse into silence. Of all the people Gilbert has known, his brother knew more of his secrets than anyone ever had, except perhaps Erzsébet. He’d known Gilbert’s romantic pursuits, even when Gilbert hid them from the world. He’d known Gilbert’s struggles, even when Gilbert had hidden them from him. But now the older brother had put this wedge between them.

“Do you want to yell?”

Ludwig shakes his head. “No, no I don’t think I do.”

“You can, if you want. I might be the big brother but we’re both men now. You’re not the little boy I used to put on my knee anymore.”

“Why…,” and Ludwig takes a step forward, looking at Gilbert finally. “Why did you always call me your brother?” There’s no need to say, “and nor your son.”

“She asked me the same thing.” There’s no need to say who she is. “I didn’t think I was cut out to be a good father, but I thought I could be a good brother. I hope I have been.”

Ludwig grips the desk chair, nodding his head slowly. “You have been. You… taught me how to be a man. I know it wasn’t always easy.”

Gilbert smiles sheepishly. “Yeah, you were a real wild child.” They both laugh awkwardly as there’s a knock on the door. “That’ll be… you know.” Gilbert makes to stand when there’s a hand at his chest, Ludwig stopping him with a serious look on his face.

“So long as you’re happy,” the younger brother says, “I’m happy, but I swear to God if you break her heart, I will never forgive you the headaches that will cause me.”

Gilbert grips his shoulders. “I love you too and appreciate that you’re thinking about me in all this and not yourself.”

* * *

## IX

The doctor leaves the room with his clipboard, Gilbert sat twisting back and forth on the low stool beside Felicja on the bed.

“So,” he murmurs.

“So,” she says. There had been hormone therapy at first, which Gilbert had helped with because he “took instruction well,” as Erzsébet liked to say. Then there’d been chest surgery, which had healed up and was pretty great so long as Gilbert didn’t think about the fact that his girlfriend had based her new breasts on his niece’s. And now there was… this.

“I don’t want,” Gilbert starts slowly, taking his girlfriend’s hand, “to make you feel like I don’t approve of anything. That’s not it, that’s never been it. I just….” He takes a deep breath to collect his thoughts. “You and me, we’ve got time on our side. And I know you’ve spent a long time waiting to live your truth fully, but I also know we’ll have so much longer to live it.”

“You… don’t think…?” Her voice trails off, nervous.

“I think they’ll get better at, you know,” and he gestures vaguely at her crotch, “over time. I don’t want you to have to go through more than you have to, to feel like your body is the one you imagine in your noggin, in case the doctors aren't there yet to do that for you — that’s all. But I will support you either way, you know that right?”

She strokes the side of his face and sighs. “Of course I do. You worry so much for someone who never thinks about himself.”

“What can I say,” Gilbert grins, “I’m a charming dumbass.”

* * *

## X

Lili hugs him tightly around his middle when he opens the door. “You’re in a good mood.”

“It’s Christmas,” she breathes, “and you’re getting married.”

“Shocking,” Basch deadpans.

“Believe me,” the German laughs, letting them in and taking Lili’s coat, “no one is more surprised than me.”

“Did you get her a big diamond for her ring?” Lili asks, trailing after him like one of Ludwig’s dogs. “Did you take her somewhere special? Did you surprise her? When is the wedding? What are the colors going to be?”

“Felicja!” Gilbert calls, leading the Swiss train behind him to the center of the house. “I have a candidate for wedding planner.”

“Lovely,” his girlfriend laughs from where she’s sat beside Erzsébet. The whole family mulls about, having absorbed their newest member with relative ease. Sure, Ludwig and Felicja could still be a bit… awkward with each other, but Gilbert loved them all the same.

They’d get there, all of them, eventually.

“I’m just so happy,” Lili announces, clapping her hands in front of herself. “I’ve not seen Gilbert this happy since Constanze– oh!”

The room goes silent, the young lady clapping her hands over her mouth. Gilbert swallows hard, feeling all eyes on him. He looks to Felicja, who smiles weakly for him.

“It’s ok,” the man finally says, wrapping an arm around Lili. “Constanze — Konstancja — had a good life and I had a good life with her. I don’t want to… not talk about her, any more. Or Żaklina, either.” He kisses the top of Lili’s head. “Third time’s the charm, after all.”

“To Felicja,” Ludwig toasts, “for… well, you know.”

“I do,” she agrees, smiling as she turns towards Gilbert. “I do.”

* * *

## XI

“The wildest groomsman here,” Roderich comments from where he’s sat pristinely like a pretty princess on the edge of the bed, “is my wife.”

“Hell yeah!” Erzsébet shouts from the bathroom of the hotel room, Gilbert and Ludwig straightening each other’s ties by the window.

“You still have time to change your mind,” Gilbert teases.

“I am not walking you down the aisle, Beilschmidt.”

“Your loss.”

“Are we all ready?” his son asks, reentering the room. “The photographer wants to get started on us, so we don’t see the bride and her people.”

“Does the photographer know,” Ludwig asks, checking that he had the rings one last time, “the pictures the bride wants him to take?”

“Oh yeah, he has his list,” and he looks to his father with the same sideways smile his mother used to have. Gilbert feels his throat start to get tight. “Vati?”

“Today,” Gilbert says, putting one hand on his son’s shoulder and one on his brother’s, “is going to be a good day.”

“Of course it is,” Erzsébet says, emerging from the bathroom in her suit; immediately her husband starts to do up her tie for her. “Gilbert’s getting married, who ever thought this day would come?”

“Not me,” Gilbert laughs and the others join him, even Roderich who snickers and grins maybe a little. The good mood carries them downstairs into the garden, where they pose for posterity, a moment to carry with them forever.

Like the first night he found Konstancja and little Ludwig asleep in his bed and thought, this is why I’m here.

Or when Żaklina looked at him and saw him, all of him, without him having to voice any of it and he thought, this is why I’m still here.

Today with Felicja he’d be able to look back on and say, this is why I’ve always been here.

“Oh no!” and hands cover the groom’s eyes suddenly, the man happily going along with being pushed out of the garden.

“What’s happening?!” he laughs.

“The bride is here,” and that’s Ludwig with the light voice. He can hear the sound of women laughing, his bride and his niece, and it makes him laugh even more.

“I’m losing it,” he sighs as they get to their waiting area, Erzsébet beside him nodding.

“She’s softened you up big time.”

“He was always soft,” Roderich counters.

“Should I be offended by that? It’s my wedding day!”

Ludwig throws an arm around his shoulder, pulling him in affectionately. “You have always been soft, but in the best possible way.”

“I feel like I’m being called stupid.”

“Not right now,” his brother comforts. “That’ll come later, when I give my speech.”

“Dope.”

* * *

Erzsébet, his son, then Gilbert with his brother beside him move down the aisle. He watches Felicja’s one godson come in, then the other, then his niece as the maid of honor. Everyone stands and Gilbert’s breath is taken away when he sees Felicja on Toris’s arm enter the chapel.

His mind suddenly recalls a moment, in his childhood, when a priest had explained to him that when your heart swelled with love, that was God, and Gilbert must always carry God with him.

He can’t look away from her and she doesn’t look away from him and in that moment, Gilbert knows God is there because if his heart had any more love in it, he might die.

* * *

## XII

His brother finds him at the kitchen table, staring at his hand. “Are… you ok, Bruder?”

Gilbert looks up at him and says in absolute confusion, “I’m married.”

Ludwig purses his lips and nods slowly. “Yeah, that happened, I was there, it was wild to see.”

“Me,” Gilbert says. “And she had a choice.”

“That is,” and Ludwig sucks in air. “You know what, I don’t want to get into what that is, but yes. Yes she did. Lord knows why.”

Dainty arms wrap around Ludwig’s middle, Felicja’s head popping around as she hugs her brother-in-law from behind. “And it’ll remain between me and the Lord, thank you very much.”

Gilbert smiles and Felicja smiles and Ludwig does his best to stay still in the embrace of someone who wasn’t his immediate family before, the older brother sees, the younger changes his mind and embraces Felicja.

She was family now, after all.

“Can I make you boys breakfast?” the Pole offers and Gilbert lights up.

“Oh, being married is fucking great.”

“Bruder! Language!”

“Well it is!”

Felicja laughs at them, kisses Gilbert, and moves to the fridge.

“Can I… ask a question?” Ludwig sits at the table across from him. “How did you two, you know… start?”

Gilbert shakes his head. “Oh man.”


End file.
